NEW: Boynton police say man tried to lure girl, 13, into truck

City police are warning residents about a man who tried to lure a 13-year-old girl into his truck Tuesday after she got off her school bus.

At about 4:40 p.m., the girl was at the intersection of Chapel Hill Drive and Fernwood Drive, just north of Mission Hill Road, waiting for her stepfather to pick her up when a newer model black pickup with a “4x4” emblem on the side pulled up.

The man rolled down the window and said: “How much will I get for $200?”

The girl said she was 13 and that she didn’t know him. The man said that didn’t matter and told her to get in the truck. Police said he repeated that several times, and when he began to get out of the truck, the girl reached into her backpack and said she was calling the police.

“We are urging parents to talk about this incident with their children and devise a plan for what they should do if approached by a stranger in a vehicle,” said Stephanie Slater, Boynton Beach police spokeswoman.

Parents should teach children to watch for descriptive stickers or other items on the car, and to memorize the license plate or a few of its letters or numbers. “If they have a phone, tell them to immediately call 911 and run away,” Slater said.

Police are urging residents be on the lookout for suspicious vehicles near bus stops and wherever else children congregate, and to notify police of them.

“We need you to be our extra eyes and ears,” Slater said.

This is the third incident in the past year in which Boynton Beach residents have reported that men unknown to them tried to lure children into a vehicle, following ones on East Palm Drive in December and on Northeast First Lane in July. The vehicles used in those incidents were different from the one reported Tuesday.

Anyone with information about the vehicle or the man is asked to call Boynton police at (561) 732-8116.